The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1887-05-26


criminals watch,
At half.past eight o'clock You will find
them in tho drinking saloon, but toward
twelve o'clock they go TO their garrets, they
get out their tools, thon they start on tho
street, Watching on either side for the po'
lice, they goto their work of darkness, This
is burglar, aud the false key will soon
touch the store lock, This is an inccndiary,
and before morning there will DO light on
the sky, and cry OF "Firel tirem This is an
assassin, and tomorrow there will DO dead
body found in one of those vacant lots, Dur
ing the daytime these villains in our cities
lounge about some asleep and some awake.
but when the third watch of the night arrives,
their eye is keen, their brain cool their arm
strong, their foot fleet to fly or pursue, they
are ready
Many of these poor creatures We're brought
up in that way They were born in u thieves
garrett Their childish toy was burglars
dark-lantern. The first thing they remember
was their mother banlaging tho brow OF
their father, struck by the police club They
began by robhing boys pockets, and now
they have come TO dig tho underground pas
sage to the cellar of the bank, aud are pre-
Barring to blast tho gold-vault,
just so long as there are neglected children
of the streets, just so long we will have these
desperadoes Some one, wishing TO make a
good Christian point and to quote a pas
sage of Scripture, expecting to get Script
ural passage in answer, said to one of these
poor lads, cast out and wretched; "When your
father and your mother forSlke you, who
then will take you upn and the boy said:
1.-THE perlice, tho perliceW
In the third watch of the night gambling
does its worst work What though the hours
be slipping away, and though the wife DO
waiting in the cherries home! Bring on
more drinks Put up more stakes. That
,,l hat
put out sign of copartnership will, in n few
seasons, be wrecked on Il gamblers tabls.
There will be many n money-till that will
spring leak. A member of Congress
gambled with a member-elect and won one
hundred and twenty thousand dollars. The
old way of getting living is so slow The
old way of getting fortune, is so stupid.
Come, let us toss up and see who shall have
it. And so the work goes on, from the
wheeling wretches pitching pennies in a rum
grocery up TO the millionaire gambler in
The stock market.
In the third watch of the night pass down
the streets of these cities, and you hear the
click of the dice and the sharp keen stroke
of the ball on the billiard-table. At these
places merchant princes dismount, and legis-
lators, tired of making laws, take respite in
breaking them. All classes of people are
robbed by this crime-the importer of for
eign silks and the dealer in Chatham street
Observation-Disclosures The clerks of the
store take hand after the shutters are put
up, and the officers of the court while away
their time while the jury is out.
In Baden Baden, when that city was the
greatest of all gambling places on earth,
it was no unusual thing the next morning, i'll
the woods around about the city, to find the
suspended bodies of suicides. Whatever be
the spendor of surroundings, there is no ex-
cuse for this crime. The thunders of eternal
destruction roll in the deep rumble of that
gambling tenpin alley, and as men come out
to join the long procession of sin, all the
drums of death beat the dead march Of a
thousand souls.
In one year, in the city of New York, ther.
were seven million dollars sacrificed at the
gaming table. Perhaps some of your friends
have been smitten in this sin. Perhaps some
of you have been smitten by it.
Perhaps there may be a stranger in tn,
house this morning come from some of the
hotels. Look out for those agents Of iniquity
who tarry around the hotels and ask you;
"Would you like to see the city" Have
ing up townp moi Then the
villain will undertake to show you what he
calls the 'lonsn and elephants" and after
young man, through morbid curiosity or
through badness of soul, has seen the ''lions'
and the elephants" he will be on enchanted
ground. Look out for these men who move
around the hotels with sleek hats-always
with sleek hats-and patronzing air and UNI
accountable interest about your welfare and
entertainment. You are a fool if you cannot
see through it. They want your money.
In Chestnut street, Philadelphia, while
was living in that city, an incident occurred
which was familiar to us there. In Chestnut
street young man went into a gambling
saloon lost all his property, then blew his
brains out, and before the blood was washed
from the floor by the maid the comrades were
shutting cards again. You see there is more
mercy in the highwaymen for the belated
traveller on whose body he heaps the stones,
there is more mercy in the frost for the flower
that it kills, there is more mercy in the hur-
ricane that shivers the steamer on the Long
Island coast than there is mercy in the heart
Of a gambler for his victim.
In the third watch of the night, also,
drunkenness does its worst. The drinking
will be respectable at o'clock in the evening,
little flushed at nine, laxative and garru-
lous at ten, at eleven blasphemous, at twelve
the hat falls off, at one the man falls to the
floor asking for more drink Strewn through
the drinking saloons of the city, fathers,
brothers, husbands, sons, as good as you are
by nature, perhaps better.
In the high circles of society it is hushed up.
A merchant prince if he gets noisy and UNI
comfortable, is taken by his fellowrevelers,
who try to get him to bed or take him home,
where he falls fat in the entry. Do not
disgrace enough. Do not let them know
it. Hush it up. But sometimes it cannot
be hushed up when the rum touches the brain
and the man becomes thoroughly frenzied.
Such an one came home, having been absent
for some time, and during his absence his
wife had died, and she lay in the next room
prepared for the obseques, and he went in
nd 1ra yOa5 bar hy bo Ipctc md Sbpoly har
out of her shroud, and pitched her out Of the
window
Oh! when rum touches the brain you can
not hush it up My friends, you see all
around you the need that something radical
be done. You do not see the worst In the
midnight meetings in London a great multi
tude have been saved. We want a few hun
dred Christian men and women to come down
from the highest circles Of society to toll
amid these wandering and destitute ones, and
kindle up a light in the dark alley, even the
gladnesS of heaven.
DO not go wrapped in fine apparel and
from your well-filled tables with the idea that
pious talk is going to stop the gnawing of an
empty stomach or to warm stockingless feet
Take bread tske rament, take medicine as
well as take prayer. There is a great deal
of common sense in what the poor woman said
to the city missionary when he was telling her
how she ought to love God and serve Him.
OH" she said eff you were as poor and cold
as ! am, and as hungry, you could think Of
nothing else"
Agreat deal of what is called Christian
work goes for nothing for the simple reason
it is not practical; as after the battle of An
tietam a man got out of an ambulance with
bag of tracts, and he went distributing the
tracts, and George Stewart one of the best
Christian men in this country, said to him:
What are you distributing tracts for nowi
There are three thousand men bleeding to
death Bind up their wounds, and then dis
tribute the tracts"
We want more common sense in Christian
work, taking the bread Of this life in one
hand and the bread of the next life in the
other band No such inapt work as that
by the Christian man who, during the last
war; went into q hospital with tracts, and
coming to the bed of man whose legs had
been amputated, gave him a tract on the
sin of dancing | rejoice before God that
never are sympathetic words uttered, never
a prayer offered, never Christian almsgiv.
ing INDUCED in but it is blessed.
There is a place in Switzerland, | have
been told, where the utterance of one word
will bring back score of echoes; and have
10 tell you this morning that u sympathetic
word u kind word, "A generous word, a help
full word, uttered in the dark places of the
town will brinp back 10 600 echoes from all